Fantasy Baseball Today - 2022 Impact Prospects & Arizona Fall League Standouts w/ The Welsh! (10/28 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

The Welsh is back to talk prospects (1:00)! ... Why did prospects struggle so much in 2021 (5:50)? ... How good can Bobby Witt Jr. be in 2022 (15:15)? ... Is Adley Rutschman worth stashing next season (21:31)? ... How did Spencer Torkelson look in the AFL (26:56)? ... What's Jose Miranda's value for 2022 (31:40)? ... Shane Baz or Shane McClanahan next season (36:06)? ... Which players have stood out most in the Arizona Fall League (39:42)? ... Let's hit some rapid-fire prospects like Drew Waters, Julio Rodriguez, Cristian Hernandez and more (51:10). ... Yankees prospects were on fire in 2021 (58:50)! ... We wrap up with Halloween/Horror movie rankings (1:05:45)! 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. I drive. Center Field. What is magnificent? Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality.

Now here's Frank, Scott, Chris, and Adam. All right, let's take a little break from our position recaps and talk about prospects. Welcome into Fantasy Baseball today, presented by Linenkugles, more on their great. variety of beverages later on in the podcast Thursday October 28th Frank Stanville joined by Scott White and a special guest who really needs no introduction but I'll be a nice guy and I'll give him one anyway you've heard this gentleman on this podcast many times it's our good buddy Chris Welsh aka the Welsh what's going on bud what's up guys I love it that the open still

works you know I think it was I think I remember when I did that fill in like two years ago it was like number one reason that I can come on and do some hosting is because Chris is in the title and my name is Chris and it still works. I heard that. It's like, hey, Frank, Scott, Chris, we all still work. So I'm glad that that still plays and I'm glad to see both of your faces. Scott, I haven't seen you in a while and Frank, I always appreciate you having me on. So it's good to talk some prospects with you guys. Yeah, 100%. I'm pretty sure we've talked about that before to like one of the other times that you came on here. But yeah, it fits seamlessly. As for Adam, that's just nobody knows who that Adam. That's a lost cause. I don't even know who that guy is. We're not going to hear any baseball takes from that man in a long

long time. As always, I want to remind you where you can find all of the Welsh's work. Of course, you can listen to them on all the Indus League podcast. And of course, Prospect One, if you want to find out more about prospects. And of course, dynasty takes there. And you could also find more goodies at patreon.com slash ITL Army. And follow them on Twitter at is it the Welsh. And last thing here, I swear, you've got Prospect One mocks going on right now. So a bunch of industry folks getting together drafting prospects. I was in one draft. Scott was in one draft. And I know that you're going to have ADP on that. So it's, it's a pretty nice barometer, I would say, of, you know, how everybody in the industry feels about these prospects. Where will you have that data?

Yeah, that's also going to be on my Patreon. You can actually just go to in this league.com and it will just swipe your right over there. But it's one of the, how difficult is it to do anything unique anymore with anything? It's one of the more positive things you can do with prospects, because it's not an untapped resource, especially nowadays. There's so many more. I mean, Scott knows. Like, in the last two years, you've probably quadrupled the amount of people that are dipping their toes into prospect content now.

But there's still that, like, you know, untouched and untapped territory where there's maybe the potential to do unique things as we don't have lots of data. This is one thing that I do. You know, I interview people, interview prospects, great analysts. I talk about everything under the sun as far as it goes for fantasy. So something I wanted to do that I thought was really useful was not just being about my rank. I do ranks, Scott does some ranks, everybody does different types of ranks. And instead of just being beholden to one or two, I wanted to actually create an ADP because

ADPs can be useful for people, especially in prospects and especially when people are just kind of all over the board. So you guys joined. I've got a whole bunch of my subscribers that are hardcore prospect people. And we just completed actually a bunch of leagues to create a, you know, just alternate universe of a, ADP and that's what I have got over at in this league.com and I will be doing more to make it more robust and it's a top 200 prospect ADP with great great minds and both of you guys took part in which I appreciate. And Frank, you were in mine. You actually, you and me were drafting next to each other which was not fun. You sniped me right in the first round on Anthony Volpe. Yeah, I was going to say,

you know, normally who cares if you get sniped in a mock, but this is so unique, right? Like how often do we just get to draft prospects? And there were a few times where you snipe me and apparently I snipe you too. So, all right, a little back and forth there. Scott is here, by the way. He's decked out in his Braves jersey. Of course, we're recording this in the middle of game two of the world series. And obviously, the Braves are playing. So I told Scott he can take the night off. Like, I'll hang out here with the Welsh, you know, enjoy the game. But Scott said, no, I'm dedicated. I want to do the podcast. How do we feel, Scottie? You don't make out my schedule, Frank. Come on. All right. Sorry, bud.

No. Got the win in game one. It's not looking so good. in game too by the time people are listening it's already over and they know what happened but uh you know i'm a little i'm little the nerves are going right now the nerves are going so i'm going to let you to relax me just a nice relaxing conversation about podcasts just some guys being dudes talking prospects we're just talking prospects got we're all friends here the nerves are going i call it podcast yeah we're all friends here i was a little nervous there freaking freaking scott little tension astros are uh astros are up a little bit but they're braids are going to be okay but they're going to still take the series scott you're going to be fine you're going to be

Oh, I hope so. Our Atlanta Braves, you know, born and raised, Atlanta Braves fan here. Lifelong. Lifelong, yeah. I actually wound up putting some money on the Braves. So I legitimately am a part of Braves fandom for this World Series. Today on the podcast, by the way, we're talking about prospects, all of them, just every single prospect you can imagine.

Arizona Fall League, first year player draft rankings. I made a rundown for like a two-hour podcast. It's a one-hour podcast, whatever. Lastly, Scott called me out on Twitter for not watching movies. of course, you know, that's what I'm known for most nowadays. So we will wrap up with our three favorite Halloween slash horror movies later on in the podcast. Let's start things off. I crowdsourced Facebook, Twitter, no surprise.

There was like over 50 different prospects that people had questions about. So I've mixed and matched a bunch of those throughout the course of this podcast. But Welsh, I want to start with just kind of a general question on prospects and I guess development. And how much weight do you put on prospect struggles? this season because obviously they missed a whole year of development in 2020 and it's not at all surprising. I mean, we saw guys like Jared Kelnick and Jaroni and Jaroni, you know, other names came up like Wander Franco got off to a slow start and he wound up coming through. Alec Mnonea was still very good. But for the most part, it felt like a lot of prospects as soon as when they first got

called up, they really, really struggled this year. Is that something that you could see lingering into next year as well? Yeah, I definitely think it can't. I think it's a really difficult question to quantify and you know there's much smarter people that maybe have more succinct answers than that but it is something that I've been I've been really trying to tackle as much as possible I mean I focus so much on it in the preseason I had a couple players on it Alec Thomas from the diamond backed and Cody Hosey with the Dodgers on before the season started and I've slowly been trying to you know pick at some of these players and find out like hey what happened with the pandemic what do you think is this year and I've extended it into my AFL interviews I just posted an interview with Tristan

Kossis with the Red Soxie and Nolan Gorman with the Cardinals. And I actually literally asked, you know, how the COVID season treated them in their developmental process. And those are two guys that happened to actually just have really good years. And they have different perspectives on it. But I think we're kind of seeing it all over the board. And it's at the, in my eyes, it's at the critical steps of development.

And there's like three, in my mind, again, this is just me. There's like three relatively critical leaps. There's that low A to high A. There's the double A. and then there's the major leagues. And I think you've seen a host of players struggle at each one of those points when they've stepped into it.

So those guys that, you know, in 2020 would have been high A players that were low A or international guys take, you know, Marco Luciano. And then this year, they kind of missed that step with mistime. You've seen some struggles. Then boom, boom, boom, boom.

Same thing. You know, Wander Franco was one of the unique guys just because of the hit tool. So I try to give a pass a little. little bit. But I'm also a lot more level-headed that, like, in the prospect game, it's a process. It has to be a process. In the fantasy game, there ain't no process. It's what are you done for me lately? And if you don't do it, people are moving on. And that's why, you know, people are going to have missed, um, they're going to miss opportunities on Joe Adele. You know, think of how high he was. Then he fell off and people were trading him for nothing. And then he's come back up. Like, you've missed an opportunity for valuation. So I think you have to be more patient. And I think you have to give one level more patience with what happens. And happened in the pandemic from low A to AAA and guys like Jared Kelnick are a prime example of bounce back for next year. Yeah and I think that's a perfect example. You brought up Joe Adele, but really like top prospects, if they don't succeed right away, this is more so for dynasty,

but I mean, obviously you could buy back in and redraft as well. But like Lucas Gialito, it took a couple of years to figure out. Like he literally had the worst qualified ERA the year before he broke out. Joe Adele finally, you know, he didn't technically break out yet, but he he did some nice things this past year. So Jared Kellnick could be one of those players who bounces back next season. Byron Buxton, it took a while for him to come around too. Exactly.

Yeah, especially for- And that doesn't help for dynasty. I understand it doesn't help for dynasty. Like everybody, like there's this big movement of proximity, you know, like a lot of people, and I know, Scott, you've always kind of weighted like this, and it's not wrong at all, but there's a lot of weight put on proximity to prospects,

but sometimes just having the production without having the patience is going, going to backfire as well where, you know, I know a lot of people don't want to invest in guys. Like, I know some we're going to talk about like Christian Hernandez, guys that are two or three years away. You don't want to invest in those guys because you want the, what can you do for me lately? But at the same time, you can make the same mistakes if you don't have the patience. You invest in a guy that's going to give you production now.

And then they hit, you know, they hit 200 for 100 at bats. And then you're like, hit the road, Jack. Like, that's not doing it. You're not doing anything better by investing in those guys and skipping on the super uber talented guys at the younger level. So it's just, it's really, it's really important to understand who you are as a manager.

And then if like, you want to be the person that has the patience and you want to really develop, then understand that there is a, there's a process to this. If you just want to be the guy that's who are the proximity guys, who are the guys are going to play, those are the guys invest. Okay,

then you can churn and burn. And that can work as well. It just depends on your level of prospect knowledge. I have a broader question to ask you before we get to the meat of this rund kind of on the subject of, you know, do you go more for the proximity game or the long-term upside game? And, you know, part of my thinking for,

you know, kind of leaning more toward the guys who are going to deliver in the near term is that for a good decade, it seemed like most prospects would give us an idea who they are right away. Not all of them. you guys just pointed to a bunch of exceptions, but most seemed like they got to the majors and they were who they were basically right away, which, you know, I think historically that's kind of an oddity, but we got, it went on long enough that we got used to it. Sure.

And the last couple years, that hasn't been so much the case. And is that, do you attribute that mostly to the missed reps from the pandemic, or do you think there's something else going on there? Yeah, I think it's also the. adjustment to what baseball is is being new. You know, like, like we, like, let's take analytics, you know, like hard analytics. Like, we all just interchangeably use, you know, exit velocity and launch angle and stuff just, you know, on a whim anymore. But these players don't. You know how many players I have talked to that you guys consider as top prospects back in 2017 or 18 when it was Taylor Tremel up until Tristan Kossis just a couple days ago, that we think like, okay, you know, this is what the game

is you talk to these guys and it's like hey so what's your level of you know you using track man you you're just like no hey what's the team doing with you i just talked to curtis mead who was a huge pop-up prospect this year with the tampa bay raised from australia fascinating story and i was just like you know hey during the pandemic by the way it's so unique about this in general because that was my worst interview i've ever done in my life and i probably will not release the uh the interview because i was so bad i'll probably release it in a comedy version on my patreon because i asked one of the dumbest questions i ever could possibly ask But the work in this is he told me during the pandemic, he was playing competitive baseball in Australia.

Like he was playing in leagues. So where some of these guys are playing on dirt fields or some of our alt sites, he was playing in Australia, competitive baseball. And then he came over this season. So you want to attribute to where was some of this success that popped out of nowhere for this 20 year old kid? He was playing competitive baseball when everybody else wasn't doing that. So I also asked him, I said, hey, you know, what are the rays doing with you right now? And he's just like, oh, just let me do my. thing. So my point is, is baseball is changing as a whole so much and there's so much to

teach, but a lot of it hasn't happening at the lower levels like it, like it would. So you get these guys that are being told, you know, you keep doing your thing, keep doing your thing, you know, do this, do this. And then all of a sudden you get to the majors, you struggle, you come back down and then you get different organizations implementing more advanced analytics, you know, you've got more feel. I just think the game at the top level is a little bit different where these guys are really taking these more edge steps more than ever. But that's just a guess on my part. You know, I think the missed reps is part of it,

but I don't think it's just the last two years. I think it's over the last four or five. Look at Max Reed. You know, Max Fried was like a semi-okay prospect in the minors. I saw him in the Arizona Fall League. He was dropping those curveballs. He was mediocre. I mean, if you want to take, like, these guys are showing you who they are right off the bat,

he came up to the majors, he was okay. And look at him now. He's pitching in the World Series. He has been a phenomenal starter. he's what borderline SP 30 somewhere in that range general range of fantasy that's not the guy that he came up and we thought he was going to be nor was Shane Boz or Shane McClanahan or something like that so you're right that has changed I don't know if we have a fully quantitative reason behind it but I do think it's because the game has changed a lot at the major league level that's not

necessarily being implemented at those lower levels that I see I mean out here in you know camps and instructs and fall league and all that. You just don't see the type of work that I think you mentally expect to be happening at a major league level. And something you hit on when you first started that point, Welsh, was that rent, was that, you know,

you mentioned that it's like, it's just different now, right? Like baseball's just different now, especially that jump from the minors to the majors. I think it was like Craig Counsel earlier this year who said like this is the hardest it's ever been to jump from being a minor leaguer to a major leaguer. And I think he was using Kestan Hira as his example.

His actually exact example was it's never been a more difficult jump from AAA to the majors than it is this season and he was using Kestin Hira. And I've actually cited that a whole lot because I think that is a very telling thing that baseball is starting to recognize. Yeah, and it wouldn't have surprised me

if it had something or anything to do with like the sticky substances but that's a conversation for another day, obviously. The biggest 2022 impact prospects, let's talk about them. Bobby Witt. is probably, you know, likely to be the first prospect drafted in redraft leagues next year. 290 batting averages past season, 33 homers, 29 steals, a 936 OPS.

Strikeouts were much more manageable than we saw back in spring training. He hits a good amount of fly balls. He's part of an organization that likes to run. Welsh, do you trust that he makes a big impact next year right away in 2022? What do you think in ETA-wise for Bobby Witt? Yes, I do think that's going to happen. And I think the team fought themselves really, really hard in not bringing him up this year. I think they just really pushed against, you know, service time and clock manipulation.

And also you got this intertwining like CBA issue where, you know, like if they didn't bring him up, you know, are they going to lose or gain more eligibility? So why just start the clock on this superstar, a little superstar changing an organizational game changer? Why start that when we're in this looming CBA thing? I think that was part of it. They showed their signs. They started moving him around different positions. He's played third. He's played second.

He's played short. It was very unique when Alberto Mondesi became more expendable. And he came back and sort of playing third because it really looked like they have, they've created what that infield will be. And it'll be Bobby Witt at second base with Nikki Lopez at short. Or they could just flip those guys easily. And Mondesie is just going to be like a super utility or third baseman. But I have been probably the biggest Bobby Witt proponent since day one. Even when he struggled out here in the AZL, I think he's one of the best professional hitters.

out there right now, especially minor leagues. He's 1A1B to me with Julio Rodriguez. And I think he's a day one guy. I could be wrong that, let's say there's some stupid weird extension with the CBA or something like that. Sure, I think they could manipulate it into April. But how I would approach Bobby Witt, because I think you are jumping into a 25-25 guy rookie year.

That's how I'm special I think this guy is, team leader-wise, monster, monster power. is I think he is going to get, unless the CBA is very clear, I think he's going to get that Luis Robert treatment from his rookie year. So remember when he was coming up, we knew he was going to get manipulated for a little bit until there was an extension,

and he was going around like top 75 overall. I think that's where you should be looking at a Bobby Witt unless there's clarity. I think he could push a little bit higher into the 60s or so if you have him full time, maybe even a little bit higher, because he is a true five-tool player I worry a little bit about batting average

but I fully believe the power is going to be there I have no question about that he likes to run he is defensively ready to go and second base he'll be great and he is the guy he is the guy to invest in this coming season I know everybody said that about Kelnick last year and we know how that went

but I feel good about Bobby Witt I really do he spent a lot of time at the Altsite camp he had a full season they didn't push him he's going to run through spring training I'm very invested in Bobby Witt this coming season So you would take him ahead of like a Willie Adamez, Danzby Swanson, if you were putting together a redraft team today,

you would take weight over those guys. Yeah. That's what I noticed when I was making out my shortstop rankings is like, man, I feel like this is too low for the top minor leaguer to be drafted this year. But like shortstop is so deep. It is really deep. And that makes it really difficult. I think I would.

even though I'm a prospect guy, I tend to not be heavily invested in prospects in a redraft. That's not my back. I don't like to go there because whether it's rookie NFL or baseball, rookies tend to struggle. And I do expect Bobby Witt to struggle. And if there's ever been a time, and this is why Bobby Witt could be more interesting

because everybody will have in the back of their head what happened this past season. Everybody but Wander Franco was trash and was garbage for them. And even in the adjustments was really, really difficult. And that could lower his cost. But because that position is so deep, shortstop is so deep, that's why I'd be willing to take a risk. If you call it a risk, you know, I know, Danesby Swanson, you know, 27 or whatever it was, homers, like that's nothing to, you know, just throw aside. But I think you can take risks with him because he's also going to probably be position eligible at a couple different spots.

And if you miss, make sure you get a Willie Adomis sets later. I think a really interesting question would be Jared Kellnick or Bobby Witt next season. Which one would you rather invest in? Because Kellnick had a really good end to the season, if you would. will, a lot of power, strikeout issues were going down a little bit. Nothing to like, you know, call mom about, but both of those guys are big time prospects. Frank, who would you rather invest in next year? Kellnick. Let's say Kelnick cost you 100 and Bobby Witt cost you 80. Who would you rather invest in? Hmm. It's a really good question. The thing is, I think Kellnick's going to go

even later than that, but just the way the question is set up there. I think I would take the shot on Kellnick if you're getting him at a discount compared to Witt just because he's there already has some seasoning in the majors I think he already knows what he needs to work on right and improve there could be some struggles right away for Bobby Witt in an adjustment period for him so I think if we're getting any type of discount on Kellnick but I have a feeling well shit he's going to go much later than that well and you answer the question like if he goes later that it doesn't it's not even a thing for you that's why I said 100 because I believe he's going to go I actually don't think he's going to go that much later than

how you're making it sound I think 150 is the max of where he goes because I think when People start digging in. They're going to like talk themselves back into that little run. Scott, what about you? What if it was a 100 Kelnick or 20 Bobby Witt or 80 Bobby Witt? So I want to say Witt just with no context. I have Kelnick 38th among outfielders. I have Witt 18th among shortstop.

So, you know, the way I put together my rankings, I do position by position first and then combine them. Just based on that, where they rank relative to the rest of their position, it's going to be hard to have. Witt ranked ahead of Kelnick. Before we get to Adley Ruchman, this Sunday, the NFL on CBS, features several great matchups, including Big Ben leading the Steelers on the road in Cleveland against the Browns, the red hot Bengals taking on those loser jets, and the Patriots out west clashing with the Chargers get set for the day, beginning at noon Eastern with the NFL today.

That's all coming up Sunday on the NFL on CBS. Adley Ruchman, Monster Year in the Miners, 285 batting average, 23 homers, 79 walks, 90 strikeouts in 123 games. Like that is unheard of for a prospect. That is just amazing. Welch, what are we thinking, ETA-wise for Adley? Actually, it was interestingly,

just anecdotally real quick. I talked to Tim Gibbons, who was the AAA hitting coach for the Orioles, and he's out here as one of the hitting coaches. And I got to spend some time on field. It was me, Eno, Chris Blessing, I had a couple of people. And Tim Gibbons was just great.

He was talking about just how the team dealt with the COVID season. and I asked him about Adley and not coming out here. And he just, he just gushed about Adley. He's like, this guy is just something special. He's different. He's built different. The pitchers, the way they admire him. He is the epitome of leader.

And I really thought he would be out in the fall league to maybe just get a few more reps for the upcoming season, maybe even work a little bit at a different position. But I think he is uniquely set to be like, like when he was drafted, I'd always said if he was a first baseman, we would have valued him over Andrew Vaughn in that draft, which was the Bobby Witt one, two by way, which probably would have had most people having Adley at number one.

I don't know and don't think the Orioles are going to be super aggressive early on simply because they're the Orioles and they don't win a lot of games and they're still in their developmental process. I think with Adley comes Grayson Rodriguez and theoretically comes a guy like D.L. Hall. So my assumption in how they're going to treat

and if they had had the AFL, I kind of think that might have been to really get those, you know, those, at-bats up for the season and maybe working through some positions. I think he's a mid-season guy. I just do not, I didn't get the impression from Tim or the rest of the crew

that they're wanting to push him anytime soon because there's a lot to learn as the team leader and as, you know, as the number one catcher who's going to be dealing with, like, major league arms. So I don't believe he's a guy that I'm going to reach on in redraft. But I will give you a little, a little tidbit here.

On my P180s, as I call them, the top 280p for your dynasty fantasy drafting of prospects, to my surprise, Adley Ruchman is the number three overall prospect. And I just like as a catcher, that's unheard of. Now, you go to pipeline or baseball America, Adley will be like the number one or two overall prospect just because catchers and team leaders and being like that, the valuation in real baseball is through the roof, but not in fantasy. It's hard to evaluate a catcher who's going to play 120-something games unless they pull a Salvador Perez and you can get them 150. So they immediately have to be slapped down. I don't remember the last time we ever had a catch. I don't even think Matt Waiters, which can feel gross when you're thinking about Orioles to Orioles here. But of the drafters, Adley Ruchman became number three.

He went three overall in two of the four drafts that I put together. And he's above everybody but Julio and Bobby Witt. And that's impressive. and that tells you where his stock currently sits. And I think it's a testament to the pro hitter that he is. And like I said, if you were a first baseman, I think we would be talking about him easily over torque, even though in this case he is over Torkelson.

So, Scott, let's say that Adley is a mid-season call. Let's throw June out there. It's a good number. He's probably not worth stashing in redraft up to that point, right? I mean, you're holding onto a catcher for two months. It's probably not worth it. Two, two and a half months. Yeah, I mean,

it depends on your league size. It depends one catcher or two catchers. It would be tough. It would be tough to hold on to him that long. I have him ranked 20th at the position in redraft leagues. So, you know, you're talking to 12 team two catcher league. I'm suggesting somebody should draft him. That's obviously not knowing what the precise timeline will be

and hoping it'll be earlier than June. And looking at who I have ranked behind him, Max Stassie and Jan Goams, and thinking, am I really going to miss out on that? if I pass over Rushman? No, I don't think so. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I might actually want to stash him, right?

Even if you play in a one-catcher league, it's going to get hard because the benches are so shallow, et cetera. That's my problem. You know, if you can hold on to just like, whatever, a middling catcher till that point in the season and stash Adley and then he has like this potential huge upside, especially like most one-catcher leagues are points leagues.

He seems like he has a pretty good points league profile, right? Lots of walks, not a lot of strikeouts. So yeah. I like how you said a middling catcher. So you mean a catcher. Yeah, right. Like quantify as a catcher. Anybody not,

the rest of it. Anybody not named Salvador Perez or JT. Real Muto, basically, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and just to add, like, if there's a guy that you bet on, if there's a guy that's better set to succeed this year than any other prospect, it's Adley. How I said to everybody, I mean, again, this is like me being super annoying and touty, but like I was Wander Franco this coming season.

It was Wander over Kelnick. It's just how it was because of the hit tool. and there is so many of these extracurricular things and COVID season that was missed that Wander Franco, the one thing that always plays is high hit tool. Adley Rutchman is high hit tool. He's a great at bat.

You can see the walks. This isn't like walking, you know, more than you're striking out in the AFL. This is walking more than you strike out in double and triple A. Like this is a big deal. Adly Ruchman is designed to succeed at the major league level.

So when he's there, it's a great bet. It's just about getting him there. Spencer Torkelson was, the number one overall pickback in 2020, I want to say. That sounds right. Uh, 267 batting averages past year. 30 homers, 935 OPS between three different levels, high A, double A, and AAA. I know that he got hurt out in the AFL. He was dealing with an ankle injury, but he was actually performing quite well there. Also, uh, did you have a chance to watch Torkelson? If so, what did you see? Yeah, I did. Yeah, if you go on my, uh, Twitter is at the Welsh. I got a few videos of him.

what he did was strike the ball hard every single time. He did two things. This is all he did in the fall league while he was here. He walked or he hit a single 108 miles an hour. That's just what he did every single time. I love Torkelson. I have since ASU. And I'm so pissed and disappointed that he got hurt for all the reasons.

But the selfish one is he was obviously a huge target of mine to interview because there's a main question I want to ask him. And he's had this since college. He's got a book out on him. him, that is low under the knees, anything, particularly off speed, but also fastballs, and they attacked him. The first game I was at was McKinsey, it was a one McKinsey Gore game. I saw McKinsey Gore all throughout the offseason. He was horrible. First start in the NFL was incredible. He was throwing four pitches again. He hit 98, and this was against Torkelson. And he was below the knees on Torkelson, every single at bat. And he got Torque to ground out in his

first two to bats. It was a change up fastball, you know, maybe one fastball up high to change the battery eye, and then he would just go below the knees and he kept getting torque to ground out. Then finally, he missed his spot going low and torque crushed a double to left. But there's a bookout on Torkelson, and I think that has to do with some of those early struggles that he has. So I'm getting at is talking about him as a profile. This guy hits the ball incredibly hard. He's got some of the biggest power that you've seen in the minor leagues. He's a 35 plus home run hitter without a doubt. The main question is about how he's going to adjust to how he's being attacked. And there's a book in the minor leagues on him. And I really wanted to ask him that. But

great plate presence. He walked while he was here left and right. He only wants his pitches. And he's not afraid to attack the zone that they're attacking. He's just a really, really smart hitter. Not the biggest guy in the world. They list him at 6-1. No chance. I think he's 5-11, 6'1. But I'm very, very much about Torkelson. And he did play third base while he was out here, which is to see. They didn't just stick him at DH every single game. He was playing some third base. So I think Torkelson, though, might be on that similar timeline as Adley Rushman, though. I don't think he's a break camp type of guy. They're still getting him to work at third. They may give in and put him at first base. Plus, you lost at bats that they really wanted to give him. And I think that's kind of why they

said, just send you home. We'll do spring training, probably do a month to month and a half in the minor leagues as long as he doesn't struggle. And then he's up, I think, mid to late May. Hmm, that's interesting because I was just about to say like the tigers, Scott and I have talked about the Tigers recently as potentially being the breakout team for 2022. Obviously they have TORC, they have Riley Green and they already made a huge jump last season. So I was wondering, you know, maybe they'd be a little bit more aggressive than a team like the Orioles because, you know, obviously the Orioles are even further away than the Detroit Tigers are at this point. But you're thinking they still, he still needs some season.

I wouldn't put it past them, but I would also say like I think they've tipped their hand just a tiny bit to show you that they're not like ultraly aggressive. Like Riley Green had a concussion and they just said, stay home. Like he was supposed to come here in the AFL and they said, don't worry about it. Torkelson had an ankle sprain, which he wanted to play and there was word that he could play the rest. And they said, no, just go home, work out, do your thing. So to me, that is a sign of like they're not trying to press these guys.

I don't think they're ready. The seasoning of AAA that they had, there's some holes. They both had batting average issues. They've both gone through some struggles. Those guys are not 100% completed prospects. If they wanted to throw them out, like we want them to, they absolutely could. But if you really want to get that proper seasoning and have all the boxes checked, I just think they're going to sit them a little bit.

So, like, am I going to invest in either one of those guys in redraft? Probably not, unless it's like a deep league and I've got nice benches that I could put down. But I just don't think you see either one of them at least until May. And I actually think they're going to be a semi-packaged deal. I think those guys are one, two. And I actually think Riley Green is probably the first one that comes up before Torkelson, if I'm being honest. All right. So yeah, I mean, look, we've seen AJ Hinch. I mean, I believe he was the manager when the entire Astros rebuild was going on, right? So like, he knows what it takes and how much time it takes before you need to call up those guys. And so I think that they're probably going to do this the right way. It seems like they're on the right track there with the Detroit Tigers. Scott, I want to ask you about this next prospect. Jose Miranda, Monster Year in the Miners as well, 344 batting average, 30 homers, 32 doubles, a 973 OPS really kind of came out of nowhere. You look at all of the. other seasons in the minors. He was never this good. He's played 80 games at AAA, and it seemed like

really for the final month and a half, he was always one of those five prospects that you were kind of, all right, there's a chance he can get called up here. If that's the case, then there's probably a good chance we either see him start with the twins or he's up within like the first couple of weeks. So what do you think about Miranda Scott? Yeah, so I mean, the actual stat line he put up between double A and AAA is, is, you know, it's something like Albert Poolels would have put up in his game. It's like a video game. 344, 30 homers, 973 OPS, very low strikeout rate.

Just amazing production. And yet, you don't see him placing very high on prospect rankings, which is always interesting to me. I mean, usually the first place you go when that happens is, you know, I'm talking traditional prospect list, not necessarily like dynasty fantasy geared. ones is defense. And Miranda is not a very good defensive player. He's a guy without a true defensive home. It's probably going to wind up at third base, but that's not, you know, he's just a pure bat. And so you can see him sinking on traditional rankings fairly or unfairly

because of that. But even in like the mocks that you put together, Chris, the prospect drafts. I was, I intentionally let Miranda go to somebody else because I just wanted to see where he'd go. I do the same thing sometimes. It's a great experiment to see where the rest of the pack is on someone that you would be more aggressive on. And he ended up going middle of round six in a 12 team prospect only draft, which, you know, I was thinking like round three or four maybe. I don't, like I, the reason he broke out is because he developed much better plate discipline and started to a, learn what he could attack and what he was supposed to lay off.

And you saw this big surge in power. I would be curious to see what kind of exit velocity readings he was producing because that seems like with the deadened baseball, a much bigger deal than it was before. And I just, you know, I don't know where to find that data for minor leaguers. But I'm pretty high on him. And unless the Welsh has a reason I shouldn't be.

No, I mean, I get bothered sometimes, but it's also my crutch about like, you know, five years of mediocrity and then all of a sudden it's like, I'm like, oh, where did this come from? Like, but it's even more difficult because you've got this intertwined COVID season. So like he was literally on the top of my list of please come to the AFL so I can like study you and figure out what's going on and it didn't happen. There is actually some tricks by the way where you can get some data for minor league baseball.

You can take the URL and you can take the little code at the end and you can put it into statcast for some stadiums that get it. And if he was here in the NFL, we could have got some of that data. But a little swing adjustments. And this would be one of the biggest things that I say all the time. And I would even have to just, you know, accept is power is the last tool to develop. And he was known as a contact hitter. It was never exceptional. You had a COVID season where he obviously got to work through something that we don't know about.

The twins have been known to kind of be very hands-on with the prospects, ask them to do different things. So there's this mystery period. and then he came out of it, taking that contact into developing power, which is that last tool. And it happened at the highest degree leading baseball in hits that you just got to buy into. But it is tough to buy into it because it came out of nowhere. And to your point, in three of the four drafts that I put together to create the ADP, he went between pick 53 and 57.

That's wild. You know, based on stats to recency bias to overall production, you can think of that however you want. But that's a pretty close proximity of once you get to the 50s. people want to jump in on it. But if you look at just the numbers alone and you think about proximity, I wouldn't kill anybody for taking him in the top 25 because, you know, I think he's more DHy.

He doesn't have a position which really, really does hurt. But dude's close. I'm with you. I was like at the end of the year, I'm like, where is he? He's got to come up soon. What more does he have to prove? It's something. And it might be defensive eligibility versus like what they have available at DH.

Real quick here, we'll wrap up impact prospects for 2022. We haven't really talked about any pitchers. choose a Shane for next year in redraft. Well, so we'll start with you, Boz or McClanahan, the teammates. So I kind of already unveiled my, showed you my cards a little bit

in like guys that completely altered themselves. Like I saw Shane Boss in the AFL in 2019 and he threw 100, but with absolutely no feeler command, there wasn't a lot of secondary stuff. And then all of a sudden this year he just can throw strikes at will and he's throwing secondaries,

which I thought was really, really impressive, incredible. But I still kept getting some like stuff like long term on him from some different people. But McClanahan was kind of similar in that like I had that same feel about Baws that I had with McClanahan like, oh, I don't know if he's got enough pitches to make this work. But this season, for me, it's about what he was able to do.

He went over 100 innings. He had a 10 plus K per 9, a sub 3 walk per 9, which is huge for me. He had a better ex-fip than he did ERA. He had an almost 15 swing strike percentage and a 31 and a half CSW. and he's got the innings under him. So if I had to take one for this year, how about the guy that's already put 120 innings versus the guy that hasn't in the race system?

McClanahan is much more built to put 150 innings in a major league rotation this year than Shane Bosz is going to be. I would be shocked if he got more than 100 in the race system. I could be wrong. Maybe he gets the 120 that McClan got, but McClanahan should get more. So I'll take the high strikeout numbers

and a little bit more in that pedigree from McClan over Bos. But it's close. I got to admit, it's close. Same question to you, Scottie. Yeah, I mean, you know I love innings And I make a big deal of the buildup that pitchers need to go through And especially on the race So like

You'd think I'd take McClanahan here But I just think I just think Shane Boz is Amazing and I don't think I could pass him over You're turning your back You're turning your back on Shane McClan After we raved about him all season long Well, come I I'm not turning my back on him

You're asking me to make a difficult choice I think Shane Boz is, you know, basically, Baz and Grace and Rodriguez are the top two pitching prospects. And I don't think anyone else is particularly close. And just based on the way Boss performed at the end of the season, I would put him number one. Fun fact, by the way, my middle name is Shane. So we're just Shane's all around here. And another fun fact that actually anybody would care about besides my middle name is

Shane Boz was the number one pitcher in half of the drafts that we put together. He was not unanimous. It was Grayson Rodriguez or Shane Boz. They split being the number one overall pitcher in these mocks that I did for an ADP. Shane McClanahan, by the way, of all pitchers with at least 120 innings of pitch last season, 14.8% swinging strike rate was tied for eighth best in Major League Baseball, with whom? Dylan Sees, who I think will be a very popular breakout. He already kind of broke out, but I think people are going to be very, very excited to draft him next season.

Let's take a quick break when we return. We'll talk about some Arizona. Fall League standouts next on Fantasy Baseball today. All right, so let's talk about those Arizona Fall League standouts presented by Lion and Cougals. And let's start with a pair of Red Sox here because Tristan Kossis, I know that you've, I believe either you have talked to him or Eno talked to him and somehow you guys converge on that, I guess I listened to your most recent.

Yeah, Eno got him first and then I interviewed him and he's on my most recent podcast. Absolutely, we both did. Yeah, so he is a first base prospect for the Red Sox. And so far on the AFL, 10 for 34, two doubles, a homer. three walks to 12 strikeouts. I'm gonna pair him and Jeter Downs together because Downs had an awful season in the minors this year.

And basically, you know, everybody, I'm not gonna say everybody, but a lot of people were like basically writing him off. You're just like, all right, I don't know what happened this year, but I don't like it. He's having a monster AFL, eight for 24, five homers, nine walks to seven strikeouts.

Strikeouts were a huge issue for him in the minors. Now he comes out here, look, it's only seven games, so whatever, it's a super small sample size. but he has more walks and strikeouts. So I thought that was interesting. Welsh, Kossus, Downs, go. If I'm choosing between them, it's easily Kossus. I love Jeter Downs back when he was a red.

Great defensive player, 20-20 potential, stealing bases, but pitch recognition is gone. I will tell you this. I mean, I don't have to say this. A million people will repeat this, but you got to take, it's a grain of salt with AFL numbers, specifically walks because pitchers are erratic. I'd also say that you're going to see tons of fastballs.

You're going to see guys trying to get right. Yeah, I just saw Jackson Rutledge with the Nationals, who was very sexy pick a couple years ago, big six foot eight, big fireball fastballer. It looks bad. And he's just trying to find command. He's just throwing 99 down the plate, no movement. He's just trying to get feel for his fastball.

And then he just is trying to, at the same point, dip in a slider. And nobody's hitting on everything. And everyone's just crushing balls against him. Jeter has not looked good in the AFL on breaking pitches already. First week was a struggle. He's not hitting any breaking stuff. He's striking out, hitting it in the ground when he's seen that.

I'd love to see the data of fastballs to other pitches, to sliders, to curveballs that he's seeing. Because I'd imagine most of the damage is happening off of fastballs right now. And he's crushing because he has real power. The ball kind of can fly around here. It's not crazy cold weather. You know, daytime, it's 80, 85 degrees. And when you see fastballs, you're going to crush them. And there's some pretty hitter-friendly places here.

This is a hitter-friendly place. There's not good pitching. Walks are ramped. I think somebody did a stat over the first two weeks of the AFL. Starting pitchers have combined for over a six ERA out here. So that's why you've got to take it all with a grain of salt. I believe in Jeter Downs that the anomaly is him hitting sub-190, but I'm not going to buy right back in.

But I think he's a great by-low candidate, and he is a massive target for me to interview, because I would love to know what has changed and what has he adjusted from. but Kossis is one of the smartest hitters I've talked to in a long time. Eno would have, whatever Eno's interview, it's like a gazillion times smarter than what mine is and probably better. Mine is a lot more like Kossis acknowledges that he saw his home run off of my Twitter. And he was like, oh, are you the well?

And that was like the biggest moment for me. I'm like, oh, you guys are watching my videos. But we talked about him as a hitter. He walked through one of his, his home run that he hit. And he's just a super smart hiter. He's not afraid to he can really, he'll really choke up on two strike counts. He has a low center of gravity. He's very movement-oriented, and he's got an incredible feel.

He's got an incredible feel for hitting, and he takes it very, very seriously. And I think he's going to be a stud. I really, really do. He's a better contact hitter than Bobby Dalback. He has as much power, and as me and I know, we're sitting with each other during that first game, and we both have the same video out. And when he hit it, Eno looked at me, and he's like, that had to be a 38-degree launch angle on that home run. And I kind of talked to him about that.

Kossis is a special bat. and if he can maintain the batting average, I mean, what we think of Bobby Dahlbach, now add batting average to it. Imagine Bobby Dahlbeck with a 270 batting average. That's who Kossus can be. So Kosses easily over Jeter Downs, but Jeter's a fun by low.

Probably not right now, though. If he's hitting five homers and everyone's like, he's back, I'm not going to pay a top 75 prospect for him, but I'd be interested. Yeah, I mean, I'm the only one who's saying he's back well, so definitely. No, no, you're not.

A lot of people are saying he's back to you. Okay, all right. So I was it going to say, like, don't take my word for it. But if other people are saying it, then that's fine. Let's stick in the AL East here. Gabriel Moreno, catching prospect for the Toronto Blue Jays. He's only played three games at AAA.

He's also having a pretty big AFL. Nine for 19, one homer, three doubles. Scott, go to you with this one. The only problem here is, it's a pretty big problem. It's crowded in Toronto at catcher. I mean, they still have Danny Janssen. We still like Alejandro Kirk as a potential sleeper slash breakout candidate. And behind all of that, we have a catching prospect

who looks like he's going to be awesome offensively. So what do we do? Yeah. Yeah, and Gabriel Moreno is a better catcher than Alejandro Kirk. So I think when the time comes, you know, I'm not saying Kirk will just never play catcher again, but I don't think he's going to be the primary option for Toronto long term. Gabriel Moreno is one of those big risers this year. So he's kind of all over the place in the prospect rankings.

But currently, Baseball America has him eighth overall. Wow. Which is pretty astounding and shows you how much. how much confidence they have in his breakthrough. And yeah, I would be, I think, let me think here. So obviously, Rushman is the top catcher prospect for dynasty rankings. Would, who am I forgetting? Would Moreno be second?

Prospects? The only guy that would be Francisco Alvarez. Yeah, exactly. But I would take more over him. Yeah, I mean, I feel like he's, he's, obviously, he's ahead on the ladder. he's a couple years older. I mean, there's a good chance he debuts at some point

this upcoming season. And yeah, yeah, it's a great time for catcher prospects, you know? Like, this is kind of like the deepest crop of fantasy, catchers you can see becoming fantasy relevant that I can remember in the time I've been writing about prospects.

And, you know, Moreno and MJ Melendez breaking out this year for the Royals and we just had a catcher go first overall in the draft again. Henry Davis. I've actually got to your point. I don't think I've ever had this. I have nine catcher eligible prospects inside my top 100 for fantasy right now. That's ridiculously unheard of.

I think it can make the argument for more even. I agree with you on that. Like I look through here and that's not including guys like Diego Cartaya. You've got guys a little bit lower like Evan Herrera, Patrick Bailey, Shane Languiliglian with the Braves who was monster power guy. You're right. It's a renaissance. and also the willingness of teams

to move catchers off and play different positions, the more you can get a catcher having more at bats, the better for the talent, Dalton Varsho, a prime and perfect example of that. And I hope they consider that with Moreno because I think he's athletic enough to maybe move around a little bit. Well, so I'm going to throw two more names your way here

from the Arizona Falle who are standing out. Bryson Stott, shortstop with Philadelphia Phillies. When I was crowdsourcing names, a lot of people were asking me about Bryce and Stott. And he only played 10 games at AAA. this past season at the AFL, 14 for 33, five doubles, no homers, but nine walks to eight strikeouts. He also has three steals, so some power there. And then Joey Weimer with the Milwaukee Brewers. And Scott and I talked to him about him a little bit later on in the season. And,

you know, there was these clips of him doing like these weird slides and he's just like a really unique dude and you've got some stuff about his batting stance. Like, just like an interesting player. He's a little, it seems like he's a little bit further away. He hasn't played above high ball yet, but he's with the with the Brewer. So what do you got on Bryson Stott and Joey Weimer? Yeah, some quick notes on him. Stott is actually my literal next target for interviewing. I really want to interview him because I had said before the AFL started with James Anderson, we were talking about the Arizona Fall League and he'd asked me, you know, potential MVP candidates. And I said, I think Stott is built for this league. High contact hitter. We haven't seen elite power,

but I think he's just one of the better set contact hitters that would thrive here. And it's exactly what he's doing. He leads the AFL. I believe still in walks, which again, you take that for grand assault, but maybe we could look at the leader in walks. Bryson's thought at least has been at the top. He's made contact every single time I see him. I think he's an absolute stud. I would be buying on him right now before the cost gets too crazy.

And I drafted him in our prospect draft we did. And Joey Weimer, you got to love him. He's personality plus big, huge power. He makes hard, hard contact. My problem is his age versus the level that he has gone to. if you want to view him as like a top 100 prospect. And I think people really want him to be. I think like he's going to be one of the big, huge,

buzzy name guys that everyone's going to buy in on. And I just not sure it sees enough. I got questions about his batting stance is wild. I mean, the bat speed makes up for it, but he gets his hands up and out, and he's lots of body movement. You know, where me and Eno, we're talking about this at the AFL where it's like,

it seems like there's four batting stances now. Like what happened to unique batting stances? They're gone. But then when you find someone with a unique one, You get all enamored and you're like, ooh, look at this. He's kind of like that, but you just have questions where it's like, boy, if that bat speed doesn't catch up or you're not on your pitch recognition, how are you going to pick up a 95 mile an hour fastball down to a 76 mile an hour curveball?

How are you going to make that adjustment with your hands coming out as the pitch is coming out? So I don't know. Like I'm in. I'm totally in. He hits the ball crazy hard. He's fun. He can run. He can hit for power.

He's stealing multiple bases. But he has only done it at like low dominating levels into double A. Really want to see what he does. next year. So he's not a top 100 prospect, but he's definitely a no-one-nosed-nose-and-a-fleague guy right now. So there you have it.

The Arizona Fall League standouts presented by Lining Cougalls, and I was out in Arizona earlier this year on family vacation and Welsh, you warned me, man. Like, Arizona in August is brutal. It is like 120 degrees. I think it was 110 degrees at night time.

At night. Oh, it never goes below 100. I always tell people, like, give me a little credit when I'm in the backfield. I'm in the backfields at, you know, complex level. It's like 104 at 8 p.m. It's brutal. Oh, my God.

But it's 80 right now. It was 80 degrees today. So that's what we pay for. It's beautiful 80 degrees. No, well, that's what everyone told me too while I was there. They're like, hey, come back in like October, November. It's much nicer here. I'm like, all right.

Well, anyway, believe it or not, I went to a pretty entertaining Diamondbacks game when I was there. And I really enjoyed Chase Field. Why? They sold Line and Cougal's Summer Shandy. It's a smooth blend of beer and refreshing lemonade that hits just right when enjoying a baseball game, especially the World Series, obviously going on right now. And as you know, the Summer Shandy isn't all they offer. They also have a Session Hellas, which has all the flavor of a crisp German-style beer,

and it's only 99 calories. And let's not forget about their lemon haze IPA, a well-balanced hazy IPA that blends hops with delicious lemonade. So no matter what type of beverage you're craving, Lion & Coogles has you covered. Just head on over to linie.com. That's L-E-N-I-E-D-com. or follow lining coogles on Instagram or Facebook for more information about all the delicious beers

that they brew. All right, so I have like, I don't know, 10 more prospects I want to ask you about and we have like 10 more minutes left on this podcast. So, burn and churn, baby. Let's do a little rapid fire here. We'll go back and forth between Scott and the Welsh, and people wanted to hear about Drew Waters.

So let's start here, Scottie. He is, you know, was revered as one of the top outfield prospects for the Braves. I'm not so sure anymore. This past season in 2020, one in the miners, 240 batting average, 11 homers, 28 steals, 710 OPS, strikeouts, way up. Still, a good walk rate, but what are we thinking about Drew Waters at this point? Well, not great thoughts, to be honest. And I was never particularly high on him in the first place.

I was kind of just going along with the crowd in ranking him as high as I did, and while still, you know, kind of downgrading him to personal taste. he was a great line drive hitter in the lower levels of the miners and that helped overcome the major strikeout issues he has but got to AAA this year after a year off and just kind of got eaten alive. He's very athletic and I think, you know, there's a chance he still develops into something. I got him, let's see,

I got him in the 13th round of this 12-team draft, so that was beyond the top 100. And I think that's a good by-law. low range for Drew Waters if you just want to take a shot on upside. But yeah, he does not look like as bankable as a prospect should be once he reaches AAA. And obviously, the Braves are competing right now. So they're not going to call him up unless he can help them win.

And so, you know, based on what we've seen at AAA. They have plenty of outfield needs at one point this year. That is Pachet either. I mean, they're not afraid to just go pay to play for veterans. And I think that might be a lifestyle change for this team as well. Well, if you don't produce now, they're just going to go buy and look at their evaluation. So yeah, I kind of agree. Waters, like, it's an interesting buy right now, but...

All right. Welch, you get Christian Hernandez super young. We're talking, he turns 18 years old in December. Shortstop prospect with the Chicago Cubs, 285 batting average this past season, five homers, 21 steals. I say season, he played 47 games at rookie ball. Where are you at on Christian Hernandez? Bye, bye, bye, I'm very high on him.

I also took him in the P-180Ps. I took him in the fourth round. I do think you need to temper yourself with taking, you know, super young international guys that have not even seen rookie ball, of course. But if you don't, sometimes take a chance. You're going to miss the opportunities like the Wander Franco. Same thing people could have not taken that chance. You know, I had him in the 60s before he hit rookie ball Wander Franco.

And if you hadn't taken that chance, you might have missed it. Christian Hernandez, I think, is special. He's a big kid. He's going to grow into his body. He's kind of skinny right now, but he showed off some pop. He showed off serious, stolen base. ability, great feel for hitting. In my eyes, and I have seen Wilman Diaz with the Dodgers a bunch of times, Luis Rodriguez, the other international guys. The only one I haven't seen

a person is Carlos Comanarez. Christian Hernandez is clear cut the number one international player. So for Dynasty, get the investment now if you possibly can because you're going to have a, he's going to play, I'm assuming here in rookie ball, and he's going to hit and he's going to succeed and he's going to be that next like Marco Luciano, you know, C.J. Abrams push up. I think he's a very, very talented player. The Welsh, a big fan of NSYNC, bye, bye, by, by on Christian Hernandez. Julio Rodriguez with the Mariners,

obviously regarded as one of, if not the top prospect in baseball, 347 batting average, 13 homers, 21 steals between high A and AA this past season. He turns 21 in December. Scott, do you think we see Julio Rodriguez in 2022? Yes, I do. And I'm not so sure he shouldn't be

the second highest prospect. drafted in redraft leagues. I'm not saying I'm not saying it's like so obvious that he's going to get called up that that's why he needs to be stashed away. But like he's close enough and he's talented enough and the Mariners are in the position where they can use him

if he proves he's ready. And players, prospects that talented. It's not rare for them to make the kind of jump we're talking about Julio Rodriguez making early in the season to have been worth drafting and stashing. So, you know, I might consider,

other guys like Josh Young as maybe the second prospect drafted in redraft leagues. But Julio Rodriguez deserves to be in that discussion for sure. I'd probably take him over somebody like Spencer Torkelson. All right, well, as you get Max Meyer, the number three overall pick in the 2020 draft, starting pitcher with the Miami Marlins, 227 ERA, 1.19 whip. The whip is a little bit high there, 130 strikeouts over 111 innings pitch between AA and AAA. Some concerns about his height is only six feet.

what do you think about those concerns? Do you think we see him next season as well with the Marlins? I think if you pitch, you're going to be good. Like, if you have success, you're good to go. I mean, the Yankees did it with Davey Garcia, and he's like 5'10 or whatever, but he just didn't have the results, so they're going to kind of move on from that. I asked Nolan Gorman, the best pitcher he saw this past year, and he pretty quickly said Max Meyer to me.

He's like, he identified him, too. It wasn't like, oh, you know, there's that one Marlins. He was like, Max Meyer was nasty. And then he tried to be like, you know, like, oh, there's lots of guys who are really good, but he was like Max Meyer was nasty. And I just don't think the Marlins are going to press super hard though. They're one of those organizations. They got so much pitching depth. They don't push crazy hard with Edward. I would take the Edward Cabrera train. If Max, we see Max Meyer, I bet it's June or July. So am I going to take the early investment? Eh, probably not. I go in a couple other

spots, but I do think we will see him sometime this year. And I'm a buyer of him. O'Neill Cruz, a shortstop with the Pittsburgh Pirates, a mammoth of a man, six foot seven. he hit 17 home runs, 19 steals with a 970 OPS this past season between AA and AAA. He actually got called up by the Pirates for two games towards the end of the season, which, all right, I'm not really sure. It might have something to do with that CBA because we saw Ronesy Contreras come up and make one start too. So I don't know. Maybe the Pirates know something that we don't. But steamer projections are out.

Scott, I'm about to knock your socks off. They have O'Neill Cruz for a 280 batting average, 19 homers, and 13 steals. O'Neill Cruz. If that is the case, then he is the number two prospect being drafted and redraft next year. Yeah, they did not go the conservative route with that projection, did they? No, no, no, no. I have to look what Josh Young's projection is now while you're doing that. Yeah, so he's always been O'Neill Cruz a really weird prospect because he's six foot seven and he plays shortstop.

And so, yeah, obviously he's going to outgrow shortstop. He broke in as a shortstop now. That's official. So there's some hope he sticks there, I guess. And he was thought to have huge power potential, but didn't really show it in the miners until this year. So I think it makes sense that he's surging up prospect rankings now, that things look a little more certain for him.

But there's still a lot of question marks. I mean, he could still strike out a ton. The size doesn't help with that. And that's why I'd be shocked to see him hit 280 as a rookie, but I don't know. I guess we'll see. Quite the projection. By the way, Josh Young projected 17 homers hitting 270, 50-50 on runs and RBIs and three stolen bases. So based on those projections, you would go cruise over Young, which is wild.

Wild. That is projected over 100 games too. So if you think Young is up earlier than that, I guess you can kind of project that over more games. And, you know, maybe we get 20 to 25 home runs. lots of line drives. I'm looking at the Fangrass profile right now for Josh Young, expected to hit for a pretty good batting average there

with the Texas Rangers. All right, Welsh, you know, selfishly, I've got to ask you about my New York Yankees. Oh, my goodness gracious! Look, it's an exciting time because we've got Anthony Volpe who, like, maybe he's the biggest riser. I don't know, you tell me,

he might be the biggest riser in, like, fantasy prospects the entire season. And then there's Oswald Parraza who I know that you really like as well. And then Austin Wells was just named the hitter of the week out there in the AFL. So like, yay, Yankees prospects. Well, you know, funny thing is Ezekiel Duran, who is traded from the Yankees, is out here. And he's with the Rangers.

And I overhear things. And I had overheard this thing where he really wants to do, and I hope I'm not like, you know, talking about something secret. But he really wants to do an interview in English, which you really got to admire. He wants to do his first, like an all English interview without any type of translator, which is a big step for a lot of these guys. And I actually kind of told one of the guys I'm like, I kind of want to interview him

because I want to ask, and this will be a horrible question to ask a guy like him, what's going on with the Yankees? Because the way they're developing, he was there and he's playing really well, and the amount of players that he was around that are playing at next level is unbelievable. Oh, look, Paraza, I'm all in on.

I love his swing, power speed combo, but there is literally no prospect that has changed his perspective than Anthony Volpe. I don't recall ever seeing something like this because he went from he can steal, he can hit, None of it's elite to everything is elite. And game changing power, a swing that will not be beat, elite stolen bases, hard hit.

Everything about him has changed. And he's one of those guys that you want to pick apart something. He succeeded at every level. Like I always want to be like, all right, but what do they do at this next level? You just succeed at all the levels. You've got to buy in. I told you before. I think I tweeted about this.

He didn't go later than the 14th overall pick in any of the drafts that we did. in this. So you're talking about Miranda changing value. Volpe's an all buy-in. And I think, if anything, Volpe is one of those guys that, you know, you make a big play on to buy right now. Someone doesn't believe him as a top 25. But Wells is a solid prospect. I'm hoping to talk to him soon. Stealing some bases for a big guy. He's playing catcher out here, I think, exclusively, but he'll probably be playing some other spots. And all of these guys are something going on with Yankees development. I don't think it's something we're talking about enough where we talk about all these other organizations. Yankees' development is next level. Whether it pans out or whether they're

creating really great trade value is another discussion. Glenn Otto, baby. Yeah, but Hulpea, Peraza, love Paraza though. Oh, wait, wait, I got to find my, uh, I got my, my Glenn Auto sound by somewhere here. If I can, I'm not going to find it in time. But anyway, we had some fun with with the phone, the call is free. Oh, here we got. One 800 Glenn Otto. Come on. Pick up the phone. The call is free. Yeah, that was a little fun there earlier. season. You have safe auto in Arizona? We do. Absolutely. Okay. Save auto. That's what that's from. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Austin Wells, by the way, 16 homer, 16 steals this past season as a, as a catcher. He only played catcher in D.H.

In the minor league. So it's kind of like this Dalton Varshoe type prospect. And, you know, there's some talk that like he can move off catcher and maybe play a little bit outfield. So, like, just a very unique player similar to Dalton Varsho. And I could tell you that within Yankee circles, I mean, what do I know? Right. but like Yankee fandom, there's been a lot of talk that they might just sign a stopgap shortstop this year like an Andrelton Simmons

just because they have that much faith in one of Volpe or Oswald Paraza eventually taking over there. So I don't know that like the Corey Seeger thing is going to happen with the Yankees this upcoming season. Ah man, there's so much more stuff I want to ask you about. So much. So much.

Where do I go from here? Movies, prospects. What do we do? There's so much stuff. All right, all right. I'll ask you the first year player draft stuff off the air. We'll have you back on eventually before the season starts. Yeah, I can do it part too anytime. Yeah, anytime. He's always available. Before we wrap on prospects, though, I do want to ask you, are there any Welsh guys that are, that you recommend buying? You've already

mentioned a few already throughout the course of the podcast, but is there anyone else that, like, you want tied to your name? I went in in Scott's Dynasty League this past year, and I bought on Hazu Sanchez, and I saw a lot of things that I really liked when he was up at the major league level, hitting homers off lefties, righties, absolute moonshots. And I know that he was someone that you were in for a long, long time. Is there anyone maybe in that Hazu Sanchez mold of Welsh guy that you recommend buying on? Yeah, I mean, oh man, the Welsh guy, though, is a unique path because, you know, I really hit great this year, but I had two years of Blas. Like, Hazu Sanchez, Nick Prado, you know, those were two of my big guys and they just

pop this year. So the Welsh guys, I've also got to just stake with them and just be bullheaded and never let anybody tell me any different. But, you know, you hit bad for two years. I mean, there's a host of guys at different levels. I'd say in the top level, Corbyn Carroll is still not being given his dues, especially because of the injury. He's one of those forgotten guys that doesn't get thought of in a top 10, but he is a top 10 overall prospect. It's a little homerish, but another diamond back. Alec Thomas had an incredible year through AAA, and I don't think people realize how good he is. And the diamondbacks, I think, are going to push him. You will see him at some point this year. He's one of those guys. Also, at Paraza was going to be in that level. Brett Beatty has been one of

the most impressive players here. I mean, from an AFL perspective, I think you should buy Stott right now, and I think you should buy Brett Beatty. Bady Bady has every single hit is going 105 plus. He's hit some 110 mile and hours. To be honest, if you didn't know anything about prospects

and you saw Torkelson and Bady, you would have taken Bady here. Like, Bady looked better than him at every single turn. He's kind of gone through some little ups and downs, but those would be a couple AFL guys I would buy into, and we'll leave it at that. I mean, there's a host of other players. I mean, you did specifically ask me about like that Hesu Sanchez mold of players.

Maybe one of the closer, older guys like Vinnie Pascontino with the Royals, that's one of those guys that like, you know, is being drafted around the top 100 has really just good numbers overall, just doesn't have a track record. He's not quite of that Hesu Sanchez mold, but I'm kind of thinking of those olderish players that are closer to the majors. I would look at those guys. All right. Music to my ears. You mentioned a few names there, Alec Thomas, who I have on the Scott White Dynasty team. I also have Josh Young. You mentioned another one there that I also have on my team.

Brett Beatty. I got Brett Beatty on that team too. I had a garbage team this year because I was given. We had to do this ridiculous draft, Scott. But I will tell you, I was the one that took Shohei Otani that just no one took. I got Shoaheotani and I did get Bobby Witt. So if I have two things to walk away from it. I got Bobby Witt and Shoaheotani in the Scott White Dynasty League.

Everything else was. Hey man, you can basically keep Otani for the rest of his career. So shout out to you. It's obviously a great player to have there. And Bobby Witt, I'm waiting on Wonderfranco. I'm not going to call him up until, like, my team's ready to compete, which might take a little bit of time. All right, Halloween this weekend, let's wrap up here. Your top three Halloween movies, it could be, it doesn't have to be Halloween related.

It could be a slasher, a vampire movie, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, old, new, throwbacks, classics, whatever you got. Scott, you are the movie connoisseur. And it's to go first. I don't know. Compared to me, you are. So you're up first. Have you seen any of these movies? Well, we'll find out.

Okay, so probably my favorite movie that you could classify as a horror movie. Certainly the ending is straight out of a horror movie is The Fly with Jeff Goldblum from the 80s. Never saw. I feel like, of course you have it. I feel like culturally the fly needs a greater, like a greater cultural footprint than it has. I feel like it's been passed over when people talk about great 80s movies like, you know, aliens, Terminator.

I think the fly is right there. And I love it. And people should see it if they haven't yet. I'm also a big fan of the original Saul. All right. I saw it. I saw it. Oh, you saw that one.

I saw it. Yeah, that's right. I do realize that like, you know, the mini sequels just became like torture porn. You know, basically from the first sequel on, It was torture porn. But the original saw was legitimately clever and actually gave you a chance to care about the characters a little bit.

So I'm a big fan of that one. And more recent one is A Quiet Place. Oh, I saw A Quiet Place as well. Scott, I saw two out of the three movies you mentioned. How about that? Surprise. I've seen all of them. That's pretty good.

All right, Wills, you're up. Your top three horror Halloween movies. All right, so I love horror movies. Scott White and I actually share something. in common that I think is unique to me and Scott in that I'm as invested as he is as in The Walking Dead. So I love horror. We talk about it from time to time, though we have not talked about it recently, even though they're all back on Scott. So we need to get the text. I know. I know. I got to catch up on them. So I, I, me and my wife, we do all the horror movies. So you name it,

I've seen it. We even go into foreign ones, which you could get into like, if you want to consider like old boy, one of those, the original old boy, it's a Japanese horror movie that got, whatever you how you want to call it that was redone but when I think of Halloween I wasn't really thinking of horror movies because I have seen them all and like if you want one that's gonna screw you up what was it hereditary that one was just horrifically imprinted in my brain of a couple scenes that were just too much but when I think of Halloween I actually go in a completely different direction I gotta tell you people may hate this my number one

Halloween movie is nightmare before Christmas it is and you You can watch it in Halloween and Christmas. Also, the number two, I'm gonna go to hocus pocus. Like, I have kids. So those are every single year, we are watching those. And then the one that I have a personal memory of is Halloween. I mean, Halloween is a main say if you're gonna go around Halloween.

Is it a great horror movie? No, but I'm thinking strictly Halloween. I remember Halloween when I was like nine years old, horrible parenting, my mom let me go to these people's house in their garage. It's older people, they're all watching Halloween and it absolutely scarrow. me for life. And that's probably why I watch movies like hereditary and whatever. Um, but I think of

more Halloween-ish movies around here. No, I got it. Because horror movies are my mainstay at all times. Frank texted me. I'll ask for your three favorite Halloween slash horror movies. Yeah. So I think we did the assignment a little differently there. Yeah. We did. Scott went with horror. You went with Halloween, which is fine. And actually number three on my list is, you know, a more family-friendly one. I grew up, I've probably seen this movie over 20 times. For people who grew up with Disney Channel, Halloween Town, like, I watched this movie a ton growing up. And I actually loved it.

So for all the parents out there, look, if you want to, if you need a new Halloween movie to watch with your kids, Welsh, Scott, if you need one, Halloween Town. It was one that I watched a ton of growing up. I think Frank just stopped watching movies once he turned 11. Or I just kept watching, I just kept watching the same movies over and over, Scott.

That was. Maybe. I mentioned. That's all I need. I've seen, everything I've seen up to this point. I've seen Grandma's boy like 50 times. Scott hasn't seen it once. Like that's a classic.

That's the problem with me. You mentioned Halloween. Obviously Michael Myers. The new movie, trash. It was real bad. So I'm just, I'd rather watch like whatever it was, Jason in space or Jason X than any of the Michael Meyer movie one. The original just had that same feel.

Yeah. So number two on my list is one of the classic slasher movies. It's nightmare on Elm Street. I'm a Freddie Kruger guy myself. So there's all different allegiances. If you like Jason Voorhees, you can watch obviously those movies or you can watch Halloween. Number one for me, Lost Boys. Not really a Halloween movie, but it's a vampire movie.

I love the theme song. It's a very strong cast. So we're going to wrap there. Lost Boys. Welsh, we appreciate you hopping on here, talking a little Halloween, talking some prospects. Of course, you can listen to all of his work in this league. And of course, Prospect One, the podcast there. You can find all of his work in this league.com, Patreon.com slash ITL Army. And of course, follow them on Twitter at Is It the Welsh. We appreciate you, man.

Hey, thanks, man. No shocker. This went long with me, right? But love you guys. much and hope to be back to talk more prospects. Goodbye, everybody. All righty for Scotty and the Welsh. I am Frank DeGill for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again on Tuesday. Bye-bye.